


The Baby Whisperer and the Banshee

by makos_lightningrod



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 18:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1559798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makos_lightningrod/pseuds/makos_lightningrod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia is sick and Stiles is known for worrying about his girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baby Whisperer and the Banshee

**Author's Note:**

> For Stydia Week 2014, Day 6
> 
> Previously on lydiasgotstiles.tumblr.com

Lydia has promised Stiles that she can take care of Claudia just fine. Just because she avoids his sick room at all costs doesn’t mean she’s above nursing her darling daughter back to health when she has a nasty cold. He doesn’t listen, of course, and takes the day off from work to hover over her shoulder, asking her if she shouldn’t take Claudia to the doctor.

Lydia tells him she doesn’t even have a fever.  
Lydia tells him that he needs to just let her rest.

And yet, she keeps having to chase her husband from their daughter’s room where she’s just sleeping, her little nose red and tissues scattered on her nightstand.

If she was honest with herself, she couldn’t blame him for fussing over their first child. She remembers the first time Claudia ever got sick. She had stayed by the crib and had to survive without her husband since he had been working an around-the-clock case at the station. She remembers how many texts she got from him within an hour - 52. It was annoying and frustrating, but she found it undeniably sweet. They both knew how much he wanted to be at home, but by morning, Claudia had gotten better and he was relieved - but regretted not being there when he could have been.

This is only the third time she has come down with something and Lydia has read all that she can about infantile illnesses. She knows that colic is common among babies, but that doesn’t stop her from having to constantly reassure Stiles that their little girl has a strong pair of lungs just like her mother (and maybe her father sometimes).

He’s hovering at the door again, and she grabs him by the ear, pulling his face down level with hers. “Didn’t I tell you to just let her sleep?” She asks, her voice low, but there’s a warning there. Stiles knows he should always listen when he hears that tone.

“Yes, but…she’s sick. I was just…giving her moral support! It’s good for her to know her daddy is there when she needs him.” He rubs his ear when Lydia lets go, but then his fingers drop to curl around her waist.

She nestles into the comfort of her husband’s warm frame, listening to the mouthy breaths of their daughter sleeping. “She’s going to be okay. This is normal for babies.” But so was SID. No cause. No rhyme or reason. Fear always clenched her heart when she didn’t hear Claudia’s breaths on the baby monitor.

But an hour later, Claudia wakes up crying and their dinner is left cold on the kitchen table.

They take turns holding her and telling stories. Stiles even tries to sing, but it does nothing to lessen their daughter’s wailings.

The next day, the Stilinski family is in the waiting room of their family pediatrician. Lydia glances around the room and notices the older children excitedly running around, touching things and sneezing all over without any manner to use their elbows. She makes a face and makes sure to keep Claudia close to her in her moby, making sure to shield her from these packrats of germs.

Stiles looks down at her doting on their daughter and chuckles. “And you say I’m protective,” he whispers to her, slinging his arm around her shoulders and kissing the side of her strawberry blond head. She makes a noise of protest and nudges her elbow against his chest.

She’s about to say something to spite him, but the nurse comes out to greet them and take them to the exam room where she asks an endless number of questions and takes Claudia’s measurements. She tells them the doctor will be right with them and then it is the three of them once more and Stiles looks around the room, reading the old medical posters that are outdated by ten years - or so his wife tells him.

“Do you think that…I mean, she’s okay, right?”

It’s so frank and honest, and Lydia feels her heart clench up. Because Stiles is the one that does the research when he has a problem, and she can just imagine him on his computer at work, typing in symptoms and reading horror stories. 

She works through the lump in her throat, reaching out to grab his hand and pull him close. “She’s fine,” she whispers after a moment, looking at their daughter. “She’ll be perfectly alright.” Lydia believes it, too. Because Claudia takes after her daddy in too many ways to count, and he is the one person she knows that seems to be indestructible.

The doctor comes in - an older woman with a small smile on her face. She talks babytalk to Claudia as if she can really speak it. Again, she goes through the same questions as the nurse has and they give the same answers. And by the end of the appointment, the doctor offers no solution - just advice. And it’s the same advice that they’ve been doing.

After, Lydia is the one driving the car and complains about how completely unhelpful the doctor is. Stiles sits beside her, rubbing his temple and agreeing with her with all her points as she drives with an unnecessary attitude that says she can drive and talk and have no cares at the same time. He looks back at Claudia to see her watching the small video player they have in the car. He’s smug that he was completely on point with that accessory and recalls how much Lydia was against ‘the moneysucker’ when they were picking it out.

He proceeds to ignore Lydia’s complaining (which is not the best thing to do all the time, but this is an exception) and reaches over to shake her little rattle, making her laugh. He smiles softly at her response and he relaxes. She hasn’t cried in a good three hours and he hopes that maybe her colic is getting better.

 

When they get home, he scoops her out of her car seat while Lydia tells him that he should just take her in in it, instead, but he wants to hold his daughter in his arms, feels the heat of her tiny body and the softness of her skin. He still sometimes can’t imagine what made him this lucky, to have the girl of his dreams and a little portion of her and him mixed together to boot. 

“Lydia,” he interrupts her tirade, lifting Claudia up so she could look at her mother with her hazel eyes. “It doesn’t matter, okay? She’s going to be alright.”

And now he’s the one comforting his wife, and she bites her bottom lip as she looks at the two of them together. Maybe he was right. Claudia looks happier than she had all day when she’s nestled in her father’s arms.

She insists on taking Claudia when he goes into the kitchen to start on dinner, but he refuses and just puts her back in her moby, letting her nestle against him. She just sighs and just shakes her head, coming over and pulling up the fabric to cover the top of her head so she’s not exposed. “I’m going to take a quick shower.” After a kiss, she runs upstairs and the shower turns on five minutes later.

Stiles looks down at his little girl and smiles. “Yeah, I know your dad’s good looking,” he says matter-of-factly since she’s staring up at him with her big hazel eyes. He moves around the kitchen and switches on the radio they have on the windowsill above the sink so that the music can make the two of them relax. He hums to the song, having sung it in the seclusion of his car when it comes on. It’s one of those boppy little tunes and he can’t help but bop along to the beat, mumbling the words under his breath.

He’s in his own little zone, and when Lydia stops in the doorway after her shower, she can’t help but smile. Claudia is nodding off in her moby, her eyes half-closed and struggling to stay open as he sings and cooks, almost knocking down the spices he has out when he does a dance move.

When the song ends, she starts to clap, snapping him out of his reverie. “Oh, hey, good shower?” He steps away from the stove to drop a kiss on the top of her damp hair. “Food is almost ready.”

He’s usually the one to cook when he has the time, because even though Lydia always follows recipes to a tee, she doesn’t have the magic touch. All her food is usually inedible, and her best friend is the take-out menus in the drawer.

“Smells good,” she smiles, taking a deep breath and smelling the delicious aroma coming from the oven and stovetop. She rubs Claudia’s back soothingly and kisses her. “Your daddy is so silly,” she whispers to her before she goes to prepare her a bottle. If there is anything she is good at preparing besides toast and oatmeal, it’s a bottle of milk.

While he sets the table, she takes her daughter into her arms and tips the bottle up. Claudia immediately latches on. Lydia turns to her dinner and smiles when she sees leftover chicken and Stiles’ world-renown macaroni and cheese. She’s grateful that he always makes the best comfort food and begins to eat, making little noises of appreciation and telling their daughter how good her father cooks.

 

When Claudia finally goes to sleep for the first time in a week without any fuss, Stiles and Lydia share a silent but triumphant cheer. She goes to change for bed, feeling exhausted. However, her husband has other plans and she can’t help but shiver when she feels him come up behind her, kissing her neck, and running his hand up the front of her. She will never admit that in the years they were together and finally had sex, she could not find one complaint with his skills.

“Hmm,” she whispers as she tilts her neck to the side to give him better access, her body sinking back against his. “We haven’t gotten a chance to do this in months…” She wants it, desperately, because she misses that part of their connection, the fact that he still takes off her clothes like he’s doing it for the first time and be surprised at how beautiful she is.

“I know,” his deep laugh sends a shiver down her spine, and she turns, lifting herself up on her toes because without her heels she barely comes up to his shoulder. Their kiss is a sweet release of all the tension that’s built up over the course of the day, the weeks that Claudia hasn’t slept for more than three hours at a time, the fact that they haven’t had time to relax together in so many months.

She wants to lose herself in the softness of his mouth, the curve of his neck as she wraps her arms around it, the sharpness of his hipbone as he presses against her.

A little yelp falls from her lips when she feels his hands suddenly run down her backside and clasp her thighs, picking her up. She laughs quietly and wraps her legs around his waist, keeping her arms around his neck as their kiss breaks for a moment to laugh with each other. Their noses bump and she kisses him once more before her back falls back onto their bed.

She sighs and runs her fingers through his hair, pulling him back slightly. He’s surprised by her ferocity, but obviously welcomes it as he gives her a horrible growl like he’s some kind of lion or dog. She slaps his shoulder and just tells him to shush. Their mouths clash once more and she lets out a quiet sigh when his body presses her down into the mattress.

And then they hear the familiar whimpers of their daughter on the baby monitor.

He makes a noise of protest and sighs, pulling back and dropping his head on her forehead. “So close,” he mutters and she smiles.

“Wow, took only less than two minutes, huh?”

She laughs again when he pinches her side. And when she makes the move to get up, he pushes her back down and kisses her. “I’ll go take care of her,” he whispers, getting up and pulling his shirt on. “Don’t do anything without me,” he demands, pointing at her in an accusatory way. He recalls the last time such an event happened and he came back to a sight that made him suffer an aneurysm.

He makes his way down the hall and into the room decorated with little giraffes and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. He looks down at his daughter and picks her up. “What is it now, Claudia?” He asks, rocking her against his chest and watching her little face wrinkle up in shrill cries.

He dances her around the room, knowing that the movement sometimes calms hers, and if worse comes to worse they’ll strap her into her car seat and drive around town until she might fall asleep.

But as luck would have it, her cries petter off, and soon her little breaths are more even and her tears dry. She doesn’t want to sleep though, and it takes another hour of rocking before she drifts off. Stiles just watches her for a few minutes, wanting to make sure that it will last and she might sleep for a little while longer.

 

Of course, once he has one of his girls down for the night, he makes his way back to find the other one curled up on his side of the bed with his pillow in her arms, fast asleep. He’s careful not to wake her as he stretches out on the unfamiliar side, his wife’s scent filling his nose when he pulls the covers over his body.

Like clockwork, cries erupt in the house four hours later. Stiles immediately wakes up and notices Lydia has also woken up. He knows how tired she is staying home with Claudia and just leans down to kiss her softly. “Go back to sleep,” he tells her. She protests briefly, but the softness and warmth of the bed wins her over. He can’t help but chuckle.

He gets out of bed and goes into the nursery for a second time that night and gets Claudia out of her crib. He decides to go downstairs to the office and turns on the computer while rocking her against his chest. He knows that if Lydia were to know he was on the computer searching once more, she would hit him over the head. She knows how far he goes to ensure the wellbeing of his loved ones - even if it means scaring his own wits.

He browses baby forums and peruses through the tips and lists before raising an eyebrow at one that he hasn’t tried yet. It seems counterproductive and he wonders if it’s such a good idea, but will try anything at this point. He immediately writes something on a post-it and goes upstairs to put it on the front of Claudia’s door for Lydia to see.

After a few minutes, he’s bundled up in his coat and grabs his keys, stepping outside. He looks down at Claudia wailing inside his coat and sighs. “I know,” he whispers. “Me too,” he tells her before he begins walking around the block of their street.

She hasn’t started cry again, and his heart lightens, hoping that this trip, this unthinkable thing, may be just the right step. Two blocks around the neighborhood and she’s fast asleep against him, her little mouth puckered up as she lets out a breath. Stiles wants to pump his fist into the air, but he’s scared the move might jarr her too much, so he just grins to himself and keeps walking.

 

Lydia wakes up with the sun shining through the window and the bed cold beside her. Unlike the usual three or four times Claudia wakes them up every night, all she can remember is the one, and she thinks that maybe things are getting better. She goes down the hallway, stopping with a frown on her lips when she reads the sticky note.

Out for a walk. Love you.

It’s out of place , and she cracks open the door to make sure Claudia and Stiles aren’t hiding in there anyway. They aren’t, and a small stab of panic strikes her because she has no idea when the note was written, no idea what it means because Stiles doesn’t take walks in the morning, he almost never is up before her.

She goes downstairs and checks the kitchen, hoping to see him making breakfast or feeding Claudia since it’s almost time for her feeding. But when she doesn’t see a pot out of place, she goes to get her phone.

It isn’t when she presses number one on her speed dial to call his phone when she walks into the living room and sees the most adorable sight to ever break her heart and put it back together again.

Stiles lays on the sofa, his sneakers still on and his legs dangling off the end of the sofa. He snores lightly and looks completely out of it. When she looks down and sees Claudia laying on his chest, her face completely at ease and her little fist curled up into her chest, she can’t help but hurry to get the camera.

The flash wakes him up, and that makes even better pictures. She takes a few before setting aside the camera and kneeling down, scooping up their sleeping daughter and kissing her husband’s stubbly cheek. “You went for a walk to the living room?” She questions as she realizes that Claudia must have slept for at least six hours straight on top of her father’s chest. 

“No, outside,” his words slur as he rubs his face, and she can’t help but smile. He has done the impossible, and she’s struck again by just how much she loves him. “She fell asleep, slept. Is it morning?”

She nods, unaware of the tears in the corners of her eyes, her smile so wide she was sure her cheeks would be sore for days. “Morning. She slept through the night after you-god, you’re like the baby whisperer, Stiles.”

He looks up at her and smiles. “Baby whisperer, huh?” His voice is husky and she can’t help but lean down and kiss him on the cheek, sighing. “The banshee and the baby whisperer. For some reason, that doesn’t seem like such a good combination.”

Lydia looks down at Claudia and watches her sleep deeply. “Oh, I think it’s the perfect combination.”


End file.
